If anything epitomized the glass and steel dreams of Atlanta in the building boom, it was a cluster of new buildings on downtown’s northern end.
Rising just above the Grady curve on the Downtown Connector, they reshaped the skyline with a flagship W hotel and condos, a Twelve hotel and condos and office buildings housing Southern Co. and Ernst & Young.
And if anything has epitomized the building bust, it’s what has happened there more recently.
Last week, developer Hal Barry lost the Ernst & Young building in foreclosure and faced down another lender that wants to take a lot where a 45-story tower was to be built. It was to be the centerpiece tower of his ambitious, $2 billion Allen Plaza, which aimed to create a 24-hour city on Centennial Hill, with glitzy offices, hotels and residences.
Instead, Allen Plaza has given the area a boost but has a half-finished feel.
“We still have a long way to go,” said Jeff Lam, a software engineer who lives on the seventh floor of Twelve and is president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. He works from home, so he has a bird’s-eye view of the pace of life. During downtown events, the place is hopping, Lam said, and it can get busy with weekday workers.
Otherwise, he said, “We don’t have the population density to match that urban feel 24/7. On a normal day, you see a few people walking around. Some are walking dogs every now and then. But it’s definitely not like New York or Chicago.”
To be sure, hard times have left pockets of uneven development across the metro area. In Buckhead there’s the stalled-out Streets of Buckhead with lifeless cranes standing sentinel. In Midtown, surface parking lots are stubbornly part of the scene as plans for new high-rises gather dust. And from Johns Creek to Jonesboro, half-built subdivisions and retail centers create another kind of landscape curiosity.
Allen Plaza’s visibility and scale — and its potential effect on the north end of downtown — put it in a league of its own.
John Reyhan, executive vice president of construction firm Skanska USA’s Atlanta office, is a tenant on the sixth floor of the Ernst & Young building. He said he loves the building, especially its location near a MARTA station and two hotels, used often by clients and workers who can fly in to Atlanta and never hail a cab.
But Reyhan said Barry’s grander vision was a reach. “He, like a lot of people, got very comfortable with an overabundance of credit. It allowed him to stray away from what were sound business principles.”
Allen Plaza was a legacy project for Barry, 70, who has been on the metro development scene for more than four decades. 55 Allen Plaza, the repossessed building housing Ernst & Young, has a statue of Barry and his grandson out front.
Barry started developing in the area called Centennial Hill in 2005, while scouting a site for Southern Co.’s new offices. That led to a bigger plan for nine blocks of hotels, office towers, condos and apartments, shops and a grocery store.
The city played along, reconfiguring a series of streets into one named for Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. and linked to the Georgia Aquarium and Centennial Olympic Park just to the west.
Barry completed the first office tower for Southern Co. and sold it for a nice profit.
“We did well and made a lot of money,” he said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week. “And we turned around, as risk-taker developers do, and reinvested a lot of it in operating expenses and project investments. And then the market hits you broadside.”
Of his three buildings at Allen Plaza, Barry sold one and lost control of two, the W and 55 buildings. Barry also faces losing the lot for 50 Allen Plaza but was fighting that out last week with the bank.
“I, and frankly nobody else, saw this one coming. In hindsight we all should have seen it coming but we didn’t,” he said of the financial collapse.
Barry, who has seen more than one boom and bust in his career, remains optimistic.
“I still believe in the overall vision and the concept of what we were trying to do,” Barry said. “Here or there, maybe it needed to be tweaked, but it was very good. We were hit by a colossal financial disaster and so be it.”
To some, Barry pulled off a major feat just assembling the land on Centennial Hill and giving it a vision that may yet be realized. Much of the area was vacant parking lots, along with a closed car dealership.
Barry bought a total of four parcels, letting contracts go on two others when the economy hit the skids. Other players got involved as well.
Post Properties still owns three parcels that one day could sport apartments, although the company isn’t discussing its plans.
Novare Group built Twelve Centennial Park and says it has sold 85 percent of the condos there. Novare also owns land next door slated for a second residential tower, though development hasn’t begun.
“That’s part of the development process: To always have grander aspirations because that’s how you compete,” said A.J. Robinson, president of downtown booster group Central Atlanta Progress. “You compete by creating a better mousetrap than the next guy. The basis of the mousetrap has been completed at Allen Plaza.”
“Hopefully when we get through this cycle, [Barry’s] dreams will continue. It’s well-positioned real estate and the brand of Allen Plaza has been created,” Robinson said. “I don’t think that will change.”
Bill Balzer, a retired UPS executive who lives downtown, said the fits and starts at Allen Plaza are “not the end of the world.”
“For a number of years, there wasn’t much development in downtown. Then people came forward and maybe did too much,” he said. “The pendulum usually swings too far one way or another.”
Balzer is optimistic development will go on, and the buildings Barry built aren’t going anywhere.
Barry believes he’ll develop again at Allen Plaza.
“At some point and time, what we proposed will be done,” he said. “More offices, housing and maybe another hotel. It’ll be done and hopefully we’ll be doing it. I’m 70 years young. I’m bent but not broken. I’m not going away.”
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